Not a Maybe Thing
by HoneydukesAddict
Summary: It took time for James to grow up, and then it took a while for Lily to realize that he was different. How long will it take for her to tell him the truth? Or has she been too blind and selfish, and messed things up between them for good?
1. Chapter 1

At King's Cross Station, on September 1st, Lily Evans paused to look behind her and flashed a smile at her family as they stood looking after her. Mr. and Mrs. Evans smiled sadly and waved, while her sister Petunia stood indifferently beside them. Turning back around, Lily closed her eyes and walked through the barrier between the muggle world and the life that had been hers for six years.

She was a short, slender redhead with brightly-colored green eyes and freckles on her arms and face. Lily had a lively personality, and many people would describe her as spirited and energetic, although she was known to be kind and compassionate.

When she appeared at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters with closed eyes, she heard the sound of the train and the voices of all the people on the platform before she saw them. One voice in particular stood out to her.

"Lily!" the girl squealed, and Lily opened her eyes quickly, looking around to see where it had come from.

Suddenly, the speaker was right in front of her, and just as quickly, they were hugging and grinning behind the other's back. Lily held on tight, and realized again how much she had missed her friend over the holidays.

"Kathleen! I can't believe I haven't seen you all summer!" Lily squeezed her friend again, and let go to get a good look at her.

It was pretty much the same Kathleen Brady she had seen for the last time about two months before. She had the same gorgeous dirty blonde hair, the same sharp, gray eyes, still was two inches taller than Lily, and still smiled just as effortlessly. The two of them had been as close as sisters for ages, almost as soon as they had arrived at Hogwarts. Kathleen knew everything about Lily, and Lily could virtually read Kathleen's thoughts.

"I know! But you know I was gone all summer. At least we got to write!" Kathleen cried, hugging Lily again. "Well, we have all year to make up for lost time!"

"Right! Come on, though, I need to be at the Head Compartment in a couple minutes." Lily picked up her trunk and started walking towards the train with Kathleen.

"Oh, yeah, you're Head Girl! You said that in your last letter. Congratulations again! You know, I really can't believe we won't ever be leaving for Hogwarts again after this…" Kathleen trailed off sadly, but then smiled. "But this year will be perfect! Especially now that the Head Girl's my best friend." She glanced at Lily, grinning, as they stepped onto the train.

Lily laughed. "Well, I probably won't be giving you detention, but I can't just let you get away with everything!"

"Some things, though," said Kathleen, and Lily nodded, smiling.

"We have to have fun, after all. It's our last year!"

The two girls reached the Head Compartment and put their bags down. Looking around, Lily saw that almost half of the prefects had arrived already, and were milling around discussing their summers.

"I wonder who the Head Boy will be. You will have to be working with him all year long… Let's hope he's cute." Kathleen grinned at Lily, who smiled.

"Well, at least we know he won't be a Gryffindor. Remus is the only one that could possibly be it, but then he's sick too much," Lily answered. "Probably a Ravenclaw. The worst thing that could happen is that it could be a Slytherin."

"Or Black or Potter!" Kathleen laughed. "But Dumbledore is smarter than to make it one of those two. Plus, neither of them were prefects."

"That would be crazy. I might have to resign!" Grinning, Lily looked around to see if the Head Boy had arrived yet. When she saw no new faces, she sat down in a seat next to her bag, sighing.

"I don't think he's coming," said Kathleen as she sat down next to Lily.

Lily smiled at her best friend. "He wouldn't just skip the first meeting. Just be patient."

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The loud crack of a wizard apparating filled a small, messy flat that had an odor somewhat like a spell gone wrong. Instantly, loud footsteps could be heard running throughout the place, and a panicked voice yelled, "Padfoot! We have to go NOW!"

"What?" a groggy voice mumbled, sleepily opening his eyes. He seemed confused as he looked over the young man with wild, hazel eyes standing in his bedroom, and became even more bewildered as the man began to pack his trunk. He sat up, took off his covers, and got out of bed. "What are you doing, Prongs?"

"You idiot, today is Hogwarts! The train leaves in six minutes!" James Potter, known as Prongs to his friends, stopped packing for a moment and found a clean pair of jeans and a shirt. He tossed them to Sirius Black, also known as Padfoot, who immediately put them on over his boxers.

James finished his packing and bewitched the trunk to make it weightless. "How clean are you?"

"I took a shower last night. Let's go," said Sirius hurriedly, as he ran a hand through his long, dark hair and picked up the trunk. He took a look around his flat, and then the two disapparated to the platform.

Once there, they took off running amid the hustle of students and parents saying goodbye to each other. Sirius cursed as he nearly knocked over one small boy, and hurtled onto the train after James seconds before the train began to move. Breathing out, the two began laughing as they leaned against the inside of the train, trying to make their heartbeat return to normal.

"There you are. I was in the Head Compartment for almost ten minutes, waiting for you two to come, but I should've known neither of you would be here until the last second," said Remus Lupin, approaching Sirius and James from behind.

"Come on, Moony, you know us." Sirius grinned as he clapped Remus on the back in greeting.

"How've you been, Remus?" asked James. "Come on, though, how's the Head Meeting supposed to begin without the Head Boy?" The three boys laughed together as they began heading towards the back of the train, stopping only for a moment to greet Peter Pettigrew, called Wormtail, another one of their friends.

The four of them, laughingly called "The Marauders," had been friends for their entire time at Hogwarts. James and Sirius were more like the ringleaders, as they were closer than brothers and had louder personalities than Peter and Remus.

James was the tallest of the four, at nearly 6'2", beating Sirius and Remus by two inches. Peter had not grown any taller since fifth year, making him 5'9". James's scruffy-looking black hair was always sticking up, no matter what anyone did to try to flatten it. He actually didn't mind it being so untidy; he thought it looked rather good, even if _some people_ pretended not to like it.

"Oy, Prongs! Evans is Head Girl!" Sirius said, laughing. "Won't this be interesting?"

"What? Really?" said James, trying to look into the compartment window to see if he could spot her.

And there she was, standing next to her friend Kathleen, and talking to one of the Ravenclaw prefects. He thought she looked even more wonderful than she had two months ago… Then James shook his head to clear his thoughts. Sirius was looking at him funny, like he was about to laugh.

"See something you like, Prongs?" he teased. "You'd better straighten your Head Boy badge before she sees you!"

Trying to hide his smile as James looked down at his shirt in confusion, Sirius opened the compartment door. Quickly, James braced himself for Lily's reaction to seeing him, and the badge pinned on his shirt.

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Looking back at the moment a few hours later, Lily supposed it hadn't been so bad. She hadn't turned purple, after all, just fairly red. She hadn't shouted so much that she was hoarse, but her throat did still hurt a little. And she had only frightened half of the prefects, not all of them. Most people that had heard the incident were actually quite amused. But certainly not Lily. She was still furious.

"Don't tell me you're still upset about Potter!" Kathleen raised an eyebrow at Lily's clenched jaw and folded arms.

Lily made herself relax. "Well, I still don't understand why he's Head Boy. Surely, Dumbledore knows that I can't stand him!"

"Dumbledore knows all," said Kathleen in agreement.

The two had stayed in the Head Compartment, along with James and his friends, during the train ride. After all, the Head Boy and Girl were supposed to stay there while they sent prefects to patrol the train, and no one thought that Lily should be left alone with James until she cooled off some more. But Lily had ignored all of the Marauders for hours, and had talked only with Kathleen.

"Come on, here's an empty compartment," said Lily, stepping into it and locking the door behind Kathleen.

As they began to change, Kathleen asked, "How much time do we have until the stop?"

"About ten minutes. Hey, we haven't seen anyone except the prefects and the Marauders. We should try and find Peyton, Hallie, and Annis to get a carriage," said Lily. Kathleen and Lily had not only shared a dormitory with the girls up in Gryffindor tower for six years, but also a lot of laughter and fun.

"What about Brooklyn?"

"Mrs. Wycliff took her out of Hogwarts over the summer. She didn't think it was safe or something," said Lily gravely. "I'm going to miss her…"

"She was so sweet though! But why did her mum take her out? Doesn't she know Voldemort is more likely to kill her outside of Hogwarts?" Kathleen asked angrily, glaring at her tie as she put it on.

"I don't know. All I know is that I'm tired of this damn war." Lily sighed in frustration. "Come on, though, let's go find them."

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"Yes, I definitely think that Evans will fall madly in love with you this year," said Sirius. He was stretched out on his back along the compartment seat, lazily eating from his pile of Chocolate Frogs.

"Toss me one of those, Padfoot," said James. He caught it, and opened it. "Dumbledore. Here, Wormtail, I already have about twenty of those." James flicked the card at Peter, who grabbed wildly for it and missed by a foot.

Smirking a little, Sirius sat up. "I'm bored," he said, stretching his arms.

"You're always bored," Remus said dryly. "You ought to be used to it by now."

"Well, it'll be different this year," said James, to no one in particular.

"Of course," Sirius said, not missing a beat. "I think I've already begun to see signs of non-hate in her."

James rolled his eyes, but smiled, and got another Chocolate Frog. As he started to open it, the train began to slow down, and finally stopped at the station in Hogsmeade. "Finally!" he said, and the group got to their feet.

Sounds of excitement and lots of chattering filled James's ears when he stepped outside of the Head Compartment. For a moment, he forgot about the several long minutes of yelling that had taken place earlier, and he became happy, realizing that they would be at Hogwarts within minutes. His face lit up with a grin, and he motioned for his friends to follow him to get a carriage.

On the way to the nearest carriage, amidst Hagrid's shouting for the first years and the general scramble to find an empty carriage, James backed into someone.

"Oh, sorry!" he said, turning around.

"I don't need your apologies. I just need you to get out of the way," Lily said with a raised eyebrow, motioning at the carriage door that he was blocking.

"Wait a minute, Evans, I believe we were getting into that carriage," Sirius began charmingly.

"Just get in, we can all share." Remus pushed his friends in, and they sat expectantly for Lily and Kathleen to follow.

"No, thanks," said Lily coldly. "I'd like to spend as much time away from Potter as possible, while I still can."

Lily turned around to join her friends in the carriage behind them, but she didn't miss the look of pain on James's face. She shook off the feelings of guilt, promising to herself that she wouldn't be as nasty next time she saw him, but she continued to think about it until she reached Hogwarts.

**Author's Note: **Reviews would be **deeply** appreciated, especially those with helpful tips! Thanks for reading, and chapter two should be up soon.


	2. Chapter 2

"Lily?" Kathleen said, smiling as she turned her head to look at Lily. "Are you still pissed off about Potter?"

The two girls were lying across their beds in their Hogwarts dormitory, their ties loosened and shoes off, too full from the Welcoming Feast to sit up. Lily and Kathleen had headed up to their dorm immediately after the feast, and had stayed there on their beds ever since.

"Yes, but I'm getting better. I'll just have to get used to him, right? It's not like I have a choice anyway. Do I?" asked Lily hopefully. She managed to roll over on her stomach and prop herself up on her elbows, idly blowing away some strands of hair that had fallen in her face.

"You definitely do not a have a choice."

"Other than resigning as Head Girl," Lily said carelessly.

"Which is not an option!" Kathleen sat up and swung her legs over the side of her bed and stared at Lily. "You aren't really considering that, are you?"

"No, of course not! Being Head Girl is a good thing to put on job applications. No, I think I can handle Potter for a couple months."

"You know, he's only said like two words to you so far this year. It's not like fifth year." Kathleen giggled, dodging a pillow that Lily had tossed at her head. Lily joined in laughing, seeing that it had missed Kathleen by three feet.

"That year was the worst, though. With Snape, too. And I'm sure that Potter is just still embarrassed from last year to bother me right now. But his ego will come back any time now." Lily actually felt a little guilty, thinking of what had happened on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters a few months before, even if it was mostly Potter's fault in the first place.

"You think so?" asked Kathleen thoughtfully.

"I do." Smiling slyly, Lily picked up another pillow and flung it at Kathleen, laughing as it hit her in the stomach.

"Ah!" Kathleen bent over, holding her stomach. "Everything I ate for supper felt that!" she moaned. But she quickly stood up and grabbed the pillow, smiling evilly and whacking Lily on the side of the head.

"Ow!" Lily laughed, as the hit caused her to fall over. With no regard for her personal safety, Lily grabbed three more pillows and knocked Kathleen into her huge pile of clothes at the food of the bed. "Good thing you have so many clothes."

Kathleen didn't answer her, only pulled her into the stack and laughed as all of her whole wardrobe enveloped Lily.

"Fine, fine! Truce!" Lily rolled her eyes, but was still smiling as she stood up and pulled Kathleen to her feet. "Now that we can move, let's go down to the Common Room. I think the other girls are still down there."

In a few moments, the girls had made their way downstairs. Lily closed her eyes as she sat down on the couch in front of the fire, feeling its warmth on her arms and face.

"Why are you smiling?" Peyton Scott, the most extroverted of Lily's dorm mates, asked. She sat down on the floor with Hallie Maddock, who was also a Seventh Year Gryffindor, in front of Kathleen and Lily, hugging her knees to her chest.

"Hey." Lily leaned back into the couch. "I'm just really glad to be here."

"That's the general opinion of everyone I've seen so far. Especially the seventh years," said Hallie. She smoothed down her dark hair and looked around at the students in the Common Room.

Seeing where what Hallie was doing, Lily turned to see who was around. Several first year girls were flocked near the Portrait Hole, and every few seconds Lily noticed that a few would quickly glance at the group of second year boys across the room and burst into giggles. Obviously, the boys didn't notice anything, and continued playing their game of Exploding Snap. Lily sheepishly remembered being younger and acting possibly even more cluelessly foolish than them.

"Remember our first day at Hogwarts?" Lily turned her head to ask Kathleen, who was lounging next to her on the couch.

"Yes. I don't know if we were ever like them, though."

"No, I'm pretty sure we were worse." Lily kept her eyes on the girls.

"Well, what's wrong with being young?"

"It's not that," Lily tried to explain. "Look at them. They just think that one of those older guys will just turn around and fall in love with them. But nothing like that is going to happen."

"Are you talking about yourself?" Kathleen asked, looking concerned.

"What? No," Lily said firmly. "I don't know why I'm making such a big deal about it."

"There's nothing wrong with having hope, even if it's pointless."

Lily looked into Kathleen's eyes and saw something like pity, or compassion in them. For some reason it bothered her. "But it is pointless. They're just getting their hopes up for nothing."

"Maybe so. But maybe not," said Kathleen. "Do you want to go back to the dorm now?"

"Yeah." Lily stood up. "Hey, Peyton, Hallie. We're going up to the dorm. Is Annis up there?"

"Yeah, but I think she's asleep," said Hallie.

"She is," Peyton added. "But we'll be up in a little while."

"Okay, I'll set the alarm when we go up."

"Okay, thanks."

Lily and Kathleen headed up the stairs in silence, until the noise from the Common Room faded away.

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"Miss Evans and Mr. Potter, I think that Professor Dumbledore would like a word with you before your first lesson this morning," said Professor McGonagall as she passed out the Gryffindors' schedules the next morning. She looked at them until they swallowed their breakfast and nodded, and then continued handing out the schedules.

"Well, I'm done," James said to his friends, who were eating breakfast with him. He took a sip of pumpkin juice and stood up. "Lily?"

Lily stopped talking to Kathleen and looked to him. "I'll be there in a minute," she said, remembering that she was going to be polite with him.

"Okay," answered James, and he began walking towards Dumbledore's office.

"I'll see you at Charms," she told Kathleen, who nodded as she took a bite of bacon. Lily sighed, hesitating, and then picked up her bag and went after James.

"Hey," Lily called after James, as she half-ran to catch up with him just outside of the Great Hall.

He turned to look behind him, and smiled when he saw that it was Lily. "Hey."

Lily bit her lip as the two began to walk in silence for a while. She never really knew what to do in awkward situations like these. Glancing up at James, she saw that he didn't seem to notice anything. He looked down at her, and she quickly looked straight ahead.

"So what is your schedule like?" James asked, actually sounding interested instead of just trying to make small talk.

"Well, pretty busy." Lily frowned, trying to think of something else to say about it. "Er, I have Charms first."

"So do I," said James. "Where's your schedule?"

Lily got it out of her back and handed it to him, watching him as he scanned the piece of parchment and waited for his comment.

"You're in almost all of my classes."

"Really?" Lily tried to sound indifferent, struggling to see how James felt about the news. She thought he would be smug or something about it, as he would have been a few months before, but now she couldn't read the emotion on his face at all. "That'll be fun."

Lily hoped that James hadn't noticed how flat she had sounded, because she hadn't meant to, but he had. He exhaled quietly and stopped walking.

"I'm sorry about the last six years," he said suddenly, surprising Lily. He paused for a moment, and she almost answered him, but he continued, "I know you're mad at me and all, and you deserve to be. I can't change anything about that now, though. But I won't be constantly bothering you this year. I want you to know that you don't have to worry about me."

"I want to believe that," said Lily, slowly, trying to find the right words. "But it's only been a day, and I don't trust you yet. Sorry."

"I know. I don't expect you too. But at the end of last year, what you said…" James trailed off.

"Don't tell me that's what made you repent of your ways or something," Lily said disbelievingly, laughing.

James looked slightly sheepish. "It was true though, even if it was harsh."

"It was more than harsh. But you kind of deserved it."

"I know," he replied without hesitating as they reached Dumbledore's office door. "It did make me think though."

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"So what are we going to do about Moony's furry little problem this time?" asked James, grinning as the he walked down the hallway after class with his friends.

"Remus's rabbit still acting up?" a Ravenclaw girl asked smilingly.

Sirius snorted, but Remus elbowed him in the side, and answered with a straight face, "Yes, actually. We may even have to do something drastic."

Peter snickered as the four continued walking. "We should do something really fun for full moon this year! It's our last chance to see everything."

"Well, of course we'll do something fun, Wormtail," said Sirius, sighing. "We always do."

James grinned at Sirius, but he looked away when Kathleen and Lily passed them. "Did I tell you what she said this morning?" He turned back to his friends, who rolled their eyes and made other annoyed expressions.

"Only about four times," said Sirius, slapping James on the back with an eyebrow raised. "It really wasn't that great, though, you know."

"Well, it was a start," Remus argued for James, trying to counter Sirius's pessimism. "It's only the first day, for Merlin's sake!"

James made himself smile at Remus, but he glanced over his shoulder to see Lily's diminishing figure anyway. Her long hair swung back and forth as she laughed and shook her head, and James found himself wondering what she was laughing about. This wasn't the first time he had wondered what she was thinking….

"That Ravenclaw girl wasn't so bad, was she, Moony?" Sirius teased, nudging Remus, and bringing James's attention back to his friends.

"Felicia? She's nice, but I don't really think-"

Here, James interrupted him. "I think she might like you."

"You know, you don't actually have to fall in love with the girl. Dating is never that intense," Sirius said quickly as Remus opened his mouth again.

"That's easy for you to say. I'm always the one the girls you dump beg for questions, wondering what they did that was so wrong," Peter complained.

"Well, what should I do? Lead them on after I don't like them anymore? Breaking it off is really the lesser of the two evils."

James rolled his eyes as they entered the Gryffindor Common Room and headed for their dormitory. "Is the Map still in your suitcase, Padfoot?"

"It is. Why, you have some great pranking idea?" he replied interestedly. He began to search through a bag laying at the foot of his bed and pulled out an old piece of parchment.

"Maybe," James answered with a grin. He tapped the parchment and the other three gathered around it, not ending their planning and laughing until several hours later.

A/N: So what do you think they're up to? How'd you like this chapter? And the biggest question of all… Should Remus date Felicia? Ha, just kidding. But please review! 


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